length

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. The state, quality, or fact of being long. See Usage Note at strength.

n. The measurement of the extent of something along its greatest dimension: the length of the boat.

n. A piece, often of a standard size, that is normally measured along its greatest dimension: a length of cloth.

n. A measure used as a unit to estimate distances: won the race by a length.

n. Extent or distance from beginning to end: the length of a novel; the length of a journey.

n. The amount of time between specified moments; the duration: the length of a meeting.

n. Extent or degree to which an action or policy is carried. Often used in the plural: went to great lengths to prove his point.

n. Linguistics The duration of a vowel.

n. Linguistics The duration of a syllable.

n. The vertical extent of a garment. Often used in combination: knee-length; floor-length.

idiom at length After some time; eventually: At length we arrived at our destination.

idiom at length For a considerable time; fully: spoke at length about the court ruling.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. The measurement of distance along the longest dimension of an object.

n. duration

n. The length of a horse, used to indicate the distance between horses at the end of a race.

n. Distance between the two ends of a line segment.

n. The distance down the pitch that the ball bounces on its way to the batsman.

n. : total extent

n. part of something that's long, a physical piece of something

v. To lengthen.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. The longest, or longer, dimension of any object, in distinction from breadth or width; extent of anything from end to end; the longest line which can be drawn through a body, parallel to its sides

n. A portion of space or of time considered as measured by its length; -- often in the plural.

n. The quality or state of being long, in space or time; extent; duration

n. A single piece or subdivision of a series, or of a number of long pieces which may be connected together

n. Detail or amplification; unfolding; continuance as, to pursue a subject to a great length.

n. Distance.

transitive v. To lengthen.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

To extend; lengthen.

n. The property of being long or extended in a single direction; also, that which is long.

n. Distance along a line, as measured, for example, upon the circumference of a wheel that rolls over it: as, the length of a road, a river, or the arc of a curve.

n. The magnitude of the greatest principal axis of a body or figure; one of the dimensions of a body, the others being breadth and thickness. See dimension, 1.

n. Reach; power of reaching; extent of range: as, the length of one's vision or of a view.

n. Extent of or in time; duration; continuance: as, the length of a day or a year, or of life; the length of a battle or a performance; a discourse of tedious length.

n. In orthoëpy and prosody:

n. The time occupied in uttering a vowel or syllable; quantity.

n. The quality of a vowel as long or short, according to the conventional distinction of long and short in English pronunciation.

n. The quality of a syllable as metrically accented or unaccented in modern or accentual poetry. See long, adjective

n. A piece or portion of the extent of anything in space or time; a part of what is extended or elongated: as, a length of rope; a dress-length; to cut anything into short lengths: often used specifically of a definite portion, of known extent, of the thing spoken of, as of an acting drama (namely, forty or forty-two lines): as, an actor's part of six lengths; won by a length (that is, of the horse, boat, etc., engaged in the contest).

n. In archery, the distance from the archer to the target he is to shoot at.

n. After a time; at last; at the end, or at a point of transition: as, at length he came to a spring; at length they were subdued.

n. To go to the extent of; rise to the pitch or height of: commonly used of inordinate action or speech: as, he went to the length of tearing down his house, of denying his identity, or of sacrificing his own interests.

n. In the brachiopod shell, the distance from the apex of the more projecting valve axially to the anterior margin.

n. In the pelecypod shell, commonly the greatest distance across the shell fore and aft, but more correctly the distance from the beak obliquely along the crescence-line, or line of most rapid growth.

n. In cricket: The distance between the bowler's wicket and the spot where the ball pitches: said of a ball bowled.

n. The proper distance at which a ball bowled should pitch; a good pitch.

- collections have sizes, not "lengths" - for a few kinds of collections we can imagine them arranged in a neat ordered line, and so their size is also length, but it's really lame to name a method after special case instead of far more general "size" - hashtables have sizes not lengths, sets have sizes not lengths, and so on - #length should die in fire!

Another piece about 90 feet in length is the knotting cord: Start with the midpoint of this piece behind the core about 4 to 6 inches below the nail (roll up each end and secure it with a rubber band so you won't have to pull 45 feet of loose cord through your loops).

Emanating from an arc about two inches above her scalp a range of fine, brilliant lights, increasing in length from the shortest by her ears to the tallest over the crown of her head were glowing and shimmering.

The clubs offer tracks ranging in length from a 1. 1-mile, eight-turn road course in Aspen, Colo., to more than four miles of road at Monticello Motor Club in Monticello, N.Y. Amenities at these clubs include everything from cigar bars and rooftop dining to spas and swimming pools.

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Comments

I notice that very few of the definitions and examples of the use of length refer to the dimension of time, Wine tasters refer to the length of a wine: this means the time for which the taste of the wine lingers on the tongue, indeed within the whole mouth - it is an aspect of mouthfeel. For exceptional wines the taste remains for minutes, even hours and one can go around for a whole day with the memory of a tasted wine seemingly everlastingly present.Such wines not surprisingly command high prices.